Minecraft’s Windows 10 Edition Playable in Oculus Rift by 2016

Audiences at the second annual Oculus VR Connect 2 developer conference last Thursday were greeted by the news Minecraft Windows 10 Edition will soon be playable in Oculus Rift sometime in spring next year.

Oculus VR’s Palmer Luckey’s announcement at the company’s event in Hollywood, California also revealed the agreement between the virtual reality tech company and Microsoft to bring the game to the Oculus Rift headset before summer 2016.

The Mojang-developed sandbox video game for Windows 10 beta was recently launched in late July, and while the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset has yet to have an official release date scheduled, it is expected to be launched next spring, as well.

A Minecraft version for HoloLens was recently announced as being developed as early as January this year, and a demo was played using both the Surface Pro 3 and the augmented reality of HoloLens at a Microsoft press conference during the E3 2015 expo in June, where both devices were observed running the Minecraft Windows 10 Edition.

It comes as no surprise, therefore, that Microsoft, which bought Minecraft for $2.5 billion in September 2014, has chosen to extend the popular 3D cube building game to Oculus VR’s Rift platform, just as it had earlier pledged to support both Oculus and HTC Vive virtual reality technology.

For users to play the game on Oculus Rift, they will need to get a Minecraft Windows 10 Edition to explore the block world in full 3D, either in survival or creative mode. As the Windows 10 Edition supports multiplayer, users will be able to cooperatively explore, build, mine, and play in the virtual world with fellow players.

Minecraft Windows 10 Edition for Oculus Rift is expected to debut in both the Windows Store and Oculus Store in Spring 2016.